£100 – The Price of Innocence?

Union members are fuming after Mayank Banerjee was slapped with a £100 fine, despite being innocent of most charges, in an apparent stitch-up by committee members.

Banerjee landed the punishment after bouncers denied him entry at Purple Turtle, claiming he was drunk and aggressive, but a Union disciplinary meeting could not find him guilty of anything other than “pursuing a complaint longer than necessary”.

Banerjee (centre) sits £100 lighter

Now Union insiders are incensed at the kangaroo court proceedings in the supposed home of free speech.

Speaking to The Tab, a high-ranking committee member said: “It’s ridiculous. Mayank Banerjee was not guilty of the majority of the charges of which he was accused.”

“The meeting found Banerjee had made no accusations of racism, had not threatened bouncers, and did not abuse his position. Instead, he was found guilty of ‘pursuing a complaint longer than necessary’ with a Purple Turtle bouncer. A crime for which the Union can apparently fine a fresher a cool £100.”

A close friend of the accused added: “Mayank was clearly not drunk, but more importantly he did not accuse the bouncers of racism. It’s crazy – they say he said he was a Muslim. He’s Hindu! They’re lying.”

As evidenced by the plethora of comments on The Tab’s Union Line-up article, banal infighting within the Union appears to rumble on, with a secretive anonymous email leaking the story to the press reputedly being sent from someone on committee.

The Tab’s insider told how committee members are suspected of inviting the Cherwell and OxStu to the Intermediate Disciplinary Hearing, claiming the story ‘could go national’, in the hope of tarnishing Banerjee’s reputation.

“It was a stitch up – they wanted his name dragged through the mud – and the OxStu story makes it sound like he’s guilty, so I guess that’s a success for them.”

The only bonus for Banerjee in all of this is that he also got banned from the illustrious PT for a term. Sadly, unlike most real turtles these days, the PT appears to be under no immediate threat of extinction.

Why bother going?